


Strength

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 09:54:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18280757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Alternative ending to the Winter Soldier movie. Steve gets Bucky back, and he has no intention of ever letting go.





	Strength

 

Steve watched as Bucky slept next to him. They had only been back in New York for a few hours and he was exhausted as well but couldn’t bring himself to take his eyes off of him. He was afraid that the moment he closed his eyes he would not fall asleep, but wake up instead, to find that he had the most cruel of nightmares. It would feel as if he lost Bucky once more and that would hurt like hell, he could not take that kind of pain twice.

 

When he first found out who the Winter Soldier was, he was lost. It was like freezing in the ocean all over again, his brain slowing down, the rush of the water in his ears, his vision becoming a blur... His love had been dead. Steve knew, because he had been there. He had mourned him. He had drank and raged and broke. Then he picked himself back up, because it was what Bucky would have told him to do. When he died, he had thought they could be together again. Steve hadn’t died though so it made sense that Bucky had been alive as well.

 

They were young when they first met, young enough to not understand the world they lived it. Young enough that they still lived in a world of their own. They didn’t believe in magic, back then, but maybe they should have. And knowing what he did Steve thought that maybe it did indeed have something to do with everything that had happened afterwards. Because as young children they swore to never part, not in life and not in death.

 

They grew older, inevitably, and their feeling for each other grew from friendship to something more, but they also started to understand the world around them. They knew they had to hide… and it hurt and so they believed in magic even less than before. Because how could something so sacred exist in a world so cruel? One that didn’t accept them, didn’t want them and tried it’s best to tear them apart. Through prejudices and illnesses and wars.

 

Steve was surprised they had lasted for as long as they did. He also knew it was because of Bucky’s strengths and not any of the credit was his own. He had not realized how much the man had meant to him, how much of his own strength came from him, until he was gone. Bucky had been there when he was young to protect him from bullies. He had been there to wipe his tears and hold him tight and tell him everything was going to be fine when his mother died. Had been there when he couldn’t find a job, when he felt like a failure because his art provided them no income, when the illnesses got so bad that he didn’t believe he would see another sunrise. Had been in his mind when his muscles burned and his asthma got so bad during boot camp that he feared he would not make it. And when Bucky died, all that strength left him, because it wasn’t the serum that made him special, it was his heart. And his heart was dead.

 

When he woke up in a new century, a new millennium, and realized that he failed in joining his love, he had half a mind to try again. He couldn’t though, because that was not the kind of man Bucky had loved, and he could not allow himself to betray his best friend like that. So he went to visit Peggy and told himself that he was not completely alone. He truly had loved her, and maybe in a different world would have loved her enough to marry her, but in a way he was glad things happened the way they had. He would have never been the man she deserved, and part of him, if not all of him, would have always belonged to another. Because if he could have chosen, if all three of them lived to tell the tale at the end of the war he would have still chosen Bucky. So in a way he was glad he had died as well and she got to live a life filled with happiness.

 

The attack on New York gave him a new purpose. It got easier to accept the fact that he was alive and the man he loved was not because the world needed him. So he let Steve Rogers fade away, and became Captain America. It was easier, and less painful. He couldn’t blame Tony for disliking him, not really, because how could he like someone he had never met. So he went through the motions, he shot where they pointed the gun, killed who they told him to kill. The war was not over, he was just doing what he had sworn to do. What he had been created to do.

 

It would have been a good life. Not perfect, not joyful or happy or peaceful, his chance at that had died in 1945, but content. Until he saw Bucky again, alive with no memory. Until he found out that SHIELD was Hydra, and he had been shooting a gun pointed by the people who captured and tortured and used Bucky like a weapon. The people that tore them apart and let Steve believe the love of his life dead and beyond his reach. It tore his heart apart to know what Bucky had been through, and that he had not been there.  

 

He fought, for the first time since he woke up, with a fire that he had thought died long ago. And he won. At the end of the fight he was alive. Wet and bloody and cold, but alive. Bucky was once more in his arms. And he was never letting go again. Of course, with a criminal in his arms and SHIELD gone he had few options when it came to moving forward… so he called Tony.

 

Because Tony might not have liked him, but he sure as hell liked Tony. He was loyal and kind and fierce. He didn’t waver in his beliefs. Fought until the end and never gave up. And he sure as hell never abandoned people in need. He reminded Steve of Peggy, though he didn’t know how to tell Tony that. So here they were in New York. In Avengers tower, actually, hidden away from the world. And together. Maybe they had done some kind of magic that day, and it helped them find each other again, nearly a century later in a different city in a world that the old them would not recognize.

 

He fell asleep in the end, holding Bucky close and with his nose buried in his hair. He didn’t know if the man would remember him when he woke up, or anything at all, but decided they would cross that bridge when they got there. The sun was high in the sky when he woke up again, as Bucky shifted to get out of his arms. He must have slept for at least half a day. He looked at the man before him… he didn’t look scared.

 

"Do you know me?"

 

"I… I know you from the bridge, and from the fight in the sky. I know they didn’t want me to know you, and that is enough to make me trust you instead."

 

Steve reached out and took a metal hand in his, he moved slowly and gave the man enough time to pull away if he desired. He ignored the slight flinch and only touched when he was sure the other would not be uncomfortable. It occurred to him then that maybe it was not the best idea to hold him as he slept, but at the time his brain had been running on fumes.

 

"I remember this. They way your hand feels in mine."

 

"Because you used to love it. You always said you could feel my warmth and that meant my heart was still beating… it used to be…"

 

"… weak."

 

He watched as Bucky turned his hand over, traced the lines on his palm.

 

"Yeah. I’m Steve but... you used to call me punk."

 

/’Cause you are one. You used to be smaller./

 

/I was./

 

/What is my name?/

 

/James Buchanan Barnes but people called you Bucky. You used to say it was less stuck up./

 

/I like it. Bucky… sounds… normal. Not like the name of a monster. Not like a weapon./

 

Steve felt something in him burn with anger at the look on Bucky’s face. No one had the right to put that doubt there, that agony. He wanted to make them suffer, to see their blood run in rivers. He had never felt such rage in his life, it terrified him that it felt so natural.

 

/You are not a monster, you have never been one./

 

/But I am. I have spent so many years killing people./

 

He probably didn’t remember much but it looked like his brain was healing faster than Steve had thought possible, and he didn’t know if it was a good thing. Because it looked like his memories were all coming back. The ones from before the fall Steve knew how to deal with, whatever had happened after… he didn’t know what to say about that. He didn’t think there was anything that could make that better but he would gladly spend the rest of his life trying to find a way.

 

/No. You didn’t. You have spent so many years being tortured. And you survived. That doesn’t make you a monster, it makes you strong./

 

He pushed himself closer and hugged Bucky, felt him relax as he did. They didn’t talk anymore after that and Bucky didn’t cry, didn’t scream. Steve knew he wouldn’t, not yet, and that was fine. He would one day, when he remembered who he was, who they were. When he remembered what Hydra stole from him, what they tried to turn him into, he was going to fall apart then. That was fine, because Steve would be there to put him back together. Bucky had been his strength for so long… it was about time he returned the favor.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi,
> 
> I have not been a writer for long, just a few months now, and my stories are crossovers and rare pairings. Even my most popular pairing has less than 1500 stories( the others have less than 50, including mine), so obviously my work is not very popular. Despite the fandoms being some of the largest on ao3 there are less people who love both and even less who want to see them blend together. Add to that pairings that are not very(or not at all) popular and there are even less people willing to read. I was curious to see what difference it would make, if the same author who wrote those stories also wrote a story for a large fandom with the most popular pairing and popular tags.
> 
> The author is the same, the writing is not better nor worse here than it is in my other stories. The pairing is still one I love, but I didn't research for this story nor spend any time at all thinking about it. In a way it has no depth, I didn't write it from the heart, I do not love it the same way I love my other stories, the ones that I wrote with all my heart in every word. It took almost no time at all to write, a couple hours, which compared to what I usually spend writing this much is nothing. But I can bet that alone it will be more popular than all my other works put together. I am posting it to see if that is true.
> 
> I do not want people to read this and then read my other stories, so I am abandoning this fic as soon as I post it. It would feel like a betrayal to my other works, they deserve to be read because people love them. It would feel like I only wrote this so I had a more popular fic, so I am removing my name from it. I hope no one feels insulted by any of the things I just said, though I see no reason anyone would be. This is just me trying to see how many more people will read this compared to my other works.
> 
> All those said, I genuinely love Stucky, love reading it and it appears writing it is not bad either and I hope at least a few of you enjoy this.
> 
> With all my love...


End file.
